PROTECTIVE: Anne Cassidy, from Chester Road, with her children James, George, Michael and Emily.
Posted on 09/07/2002 1:52:01 PM PDT by David Hunter
A Sunderland mother is having her children chipped because she is terrified they may be abducted.
Eight-year-old James Cassidy and his sister, Emily, five, are now on a register and will get electronically tagged by their GP so their mother, Anne, can keep tabs on them 24 hours a day.
The £20 miniature chip will send a signal via a mobile phone network to a computer, which will be able to pinpoint the children's exact location on an electronic map.
The 37-year-old mother-of-four, of Chester Road, Sunderland, said: "I don't want anybody pinching my kids. I'm so frightened they might be abducted that I've never allowed them out on their own to play.
They've been like little prisoners in the backyard this summer and I think they'll be over the moon about getting chipped because they will be able to play out.
"Even before Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were murdered I wouldn't let them out because I'm so terrified somebody might take them away."
Anne, who also has George, 12, and Michael, 11, contacted the Echo for help after hearing that 11-year-old, Danielle Duval, from Reading, will have the device implanted in her arm in the next few months.
After the Echo linked up with a Reading news agency which is compiling a list of names of parents who want their children tagging, Anne was overjoyed. She said: "It's just brilliant to know their names are on the list. It's magnificent. I just can't believe it. All the people I have rang for days and I just rang the Echo and you've done it. I'm absolutely over the moon and the bairns will be as well because for once they'll have freedom."
Anne is one of 50 parents who have put their children's names on a register for the chip which will be inserted under local anaesthetic. She said their dad, George, from whom she is separated, will be delighted, too.
"At the moment they are missing out tremendously," she said. "They have no friends to knock on the door and play with them. That's why I've got them a computer, Play Station, pool for the backyard and I take them to the pictures and McDonald's because they aren't allowed anywhere on their own."
While several children's charities said they were unsure about the implant, Anne remains convinced that she is doing the right thing and said she knew plenty of other mothers who would follow suit.
The designer of the chip Kevin Warwick, of the cybernetics department at Reading University, conceded that some parents might abuse the system or over react if their children were late home, but maintained that tagging was the correct course of action in the light of recent events.
Anne is hoping to have her children chipped for Christmas and added: "I can't think of a better present. At last I'll have peace of mind."
Ah, yeah. That's what this is all about. That's where this is going.
Freedom.
Tracking implants for freedom.
Not to mention "for the children..."
Just wait until a pedophile hacker starts using the chips to actually locate children for the purpose of abduction. Won't we all be schocked and apalled?
The views of Anne Cassidy regarding what her children can do with the implant, as opposed to without it, sound like complacency to me. The problem is that having their children 'chipped' is bound to make people think their children are more safe than those without it, hence they behave differently, and perhaps unwittingly increase the chances of an abduction.
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